Well, I must apologize that I didn´t get much off last week. So I will just answer your questions really quick first. The church is not in our area so we still have to travel a bit to get there. We found out it takes 25 minutes or so to walk, but I think we are going to be taking the colectivo from now on. That is pretty much how we get everywhere. We take the colectivo a couple times a day.
We do have a nice sized supermarket somewhat nearby. We take colectivo to get to California (the name of the supermarket) and then take it back with all our stuff. Kind of a pain. There is another supermarket, the libertad, that is like 40 minutes away by colectivo which is like the huge walmarts we have. So whereas they have some really good stuff there, I don´t know that we will be visiting it too often. We really don´t need much except breakfast and snacks because the members feed us every single day. Meat and noodles every day. Kind of painful sometimes, but really they all cook really well and I am pretty accustomed to the meat and noodles now. I shouldn´t forget the bread, with every meal the Argentines have to eat bread it seems, it doesn´t matter what it is.
There are easily 25 missionaries or so in posadas, maybe more. Right about 25 though. And there are a few people that I know that came to Argentina with me, but no one from that was in my MTC district. I haven´t seen much of the sister missionaries.
I have no clue how many people are in posadas, but the city is huge. I know a bit better now because yesterday my companion and I had permission to go and visit a member in the hospital in centro and we missed where we were suppose to get off. By a lot. So we were told that the colectivo takes a round trip and so we stayed on for a time until we were forced to get off, clear on the other side of the city. We were right on a route and there we had to call a remise to get back to our area. So much for the hospital. It was a frustrating and somewhat interesting experience.
As far as religions go, there are still plenty of religions, but really mainly catholic, evangelists, and jehova´s witnesses.
The falls are I believe a few hours north and east of us. I am not very far into misiones I don´t think. We aren´t able to go visit the falls. You have to be in certain areas closer to the falls to be able to go and visit them. I am not quite up far enough I guess. It would be awesome to see the falls, but I suppose it doesn´t really matter.
The weather is still pretty cold, but we don´t have much more winter left and it is starting to warm up. It has been raining quite a bit lately too. It comes on so suddenly. Although the city has a lot of paved or cobblestone roads, there is still plenty of mud to trudge around in. At least in this part of the city. There are still the poor areas of the neighbourhoods, but for the most part people are pretty well off here. There are a lot of houses made of wood too. The poorer parts have a lot of houses with just a bunch of wooden boards.
In case I never told you, I do get the dear elder letters all the time. I also recently got a letter you sent with the geneology stuff on the Paul side of the family. Very interesting information. That is the kind of stuff I would love to know more about.
So yes it is true that we pray a lot every day. All in castellano of course. Sometimes I feel I am so inadaquit expressing myself in prayer in a language I don’t fully understand, and it can be kind of a drag sometimes, but then I remember that I just need to be sincere and express things the way I can. Heavenly Father already knows our hearts. Yes we get our six or so prayers in and that doesn´t count all the lessons we have.
Don´t worry mom I am writing in my journal every single day. I have every day recorded since I left home. Sometimes it seems like a waste because the days seem so similar sometimes, but something unique happens almost every day.
Jonathan, to answer your question about laundry, laundry is quite a pain now. I spent all of last pday cleaning my clothes and left them out to dry over night. We have a little tub that we fill with water and a bucket which we use to scrub our clothes in. So I guess I was spoiled in my last area. It was rather disappointing when I woke up at three in the morning to the sound of rain on the metal roof (quite the noise). My clothes were still outside and remained outside for about 3 days while the rain continued on and off. Just today the skies are finally clear again, but the whole last week has been pretty gloomy. We are right by a river so it is sometimes really foggy in the morning.
So we found 12 new investigators last week which felt really good. We found 3 families amist all those people and they are really awesome families. One of the families, Alfonso, the father promised us that he would put the church above everything else this week and that he wants to make a covenant with god. He has been really receptive to what we are teaching him. He could just be a golden investigator.
By the way, I don´t remember if I ever told you about Anaí Chofer. The missionaries had been working with her and she was baptized my second week here by her father. She is 15 and her dad is an active member. You could tell it was a really good experience for the father. He has been waiting for quite some time I think. His wife for some reason has not accepted the gospel, but finally consented to her daughter being baptized. We are trying to teach the mother of Anaí now so we can unite the family. She was at the baptism and everything and so hopefully felt something there.
I find that I am actually speaking quite well with my latino companion. We can communicate anything really if we need to. Still it can be a struggle to say exactly what I want to say. Still, it is all coming along little by little. I still don´t like to jump into conversations on my own too much. I didn´t like doing it in English either. So I am working on that now. Still, I can teach the gospel quite well I feel like now. I feel comfortable teaching for the most part. I just need to work on opening my mouth a bit more often.
As far as my companion goes, lets just say this has been a challenging transfer. I think Elder Perez has let himself get a little discouraged and tired of working. So it has been my job to try and encourage and reanimate him. Kind of a challenge. Still, I know he is a great person and is trying. He teaches really well and I am learning a lot from him. It has been a couple weeks now and we are working much better together. I hope to have some good success this transfer.
I love you all and hope your are enjoying the lasts of your summer as I enjoy the lasts of my winter. I am not looking forward to summer and all the wet, himid, hot climate. Oh well. I will survive I suppose, just like I have survived everything else thus far.
Elder Aaron McDonald
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